> He counts Soviet WWII dead as casualties of communism
I have a copy of the book. I haven't found that in it, although it's a large book and I may have missed it. Can you provide a page number? I'd appreciate it.
Which counts invading Nazis and babies that might have been born. It’s widely panned by historians and even several of the authors admitted they made bits up.
Regardless, capitalism’s death toll far exceeds 100 million, it achieves that much in a few years. The carnage is truly difficult to imagine, especially in the comfort such carnage buys for the imperialist countries.
Capitalism requires constant expansion to function, largely by super-exploiting its periphery. Poor countries are kept poor in order to exploit cheap resources and labour, which enrich a few in the rich countries. Some crumbs are thrown to the workers of rich countries in order to prevent them from rebelling.
Millions die every year due to poverty, through lack of clean water, lack of food, disease, etc. Wars are also used to prevent the poor countries from rebelling, which kills people too. In many cases the two go together, like the starving of Yemen. The attacks against Iraq or Libya or Syria are also good examples. It only takes a few years to get to 100 million if you add all of that up.
It doesn’t look very good historically either. The slave trade was essential to the initial accumulation of capital. In settler colonies like the US or Australia or South Africa or Israel indigenous people have been displaced and killed. WW1 started over competition for colonies in the global south. Later on the invasions of Korea or Vietnam, etc.
> In December 1978, eighteen of the local farmers, led by Yen Jingchang, met in the largest house in the village. They agreed to break the law at the time by signing a secret agreement to divide the land, a local People's Commune, into family plots. Each plot was to be worked by an individual family who would turn over some of what they grew to the government and the collective whilst at the same time agreeing that they could keep the surplus for themselves. The villagers also agreed that should one of them be caught and sentenced to death that the other villagers would raise their children until they were eighteen years old. At the time, the villagers were worried that another famine might strike the village after a particularly bad harvest and more people might die of hunger.
> After this secret capitalist reform, Xiaogang village produced a harvest that was larger than the previous five years combined. Per capita income in the village increase from 22 yuan to 400 yuan with grain output increasing to 90,000 kg in 1979. This attracted significant attention from surrounding villages and before long the government in Beijing had found out. The villagers were fortunate in that at the time China had just changed leadership after Mao Zedong had died. The new leadership under Deng Xiaoping was looking for ways to reform China's economy and the discovery of Xiaogang's innovation was held up as a model to other villages across the country. This led to the abandonment of collectivised farming across China and a large increase in agricultural production. The secret signing of the contract in Xiaogang is widely regarded as the beginning of the period of rapid economic growth and industrialisation that mainland China has experienced in the thirty years since.
It's well past time to face the facts: Capitalism raises standards of living. Socialism impoverishes.
> Poor countries are kept poor in order to exploit cheap resources and labour, which enrich a few in the rich countries.
Complete nonsense. Poor countries with liberal economies grow fastest and see the most dramatic drops in absolute poverty. No one benefits more from free trade than poor countries.
> Millions die every year due to poverty, through lack of clean water, lack of food, disease, etc.
And they die at a higher rate under socialism than capitalism.
> In many cases the two go together, like the starving of Yemen. The attacks against Iraq or Libya or Syria are also good examples. It only takes a few years to get to 100 million if you add all of that up.
What does this have to do with capitalism? Capitalism means
You need to provide a reliable source for your fantastical claim that "capitalism’s death toll far exceeds 100 million". You're trying to deflect because you don't have one.
It puts the present death toll of capitalism at around 9 million a year, so a mere decade or so to surpass 100. This without counting the significant historical death toll too.
> Compared to those that were less free, countries with higher economic freedom ratings during 1980–2005 had lower rates of both extreme and moderate poverty in 2005. More importantly, countries with higher levels of economic freedom in 1980 and larger increases in economic freedom during the 1980s and 1990s achieved larger poverty rate reductions than economies that were less free. These relationships were true even after adjustment for geographic and locational factors and foreign assistance as a share of income. The positive relations between the level and change in economic freedom and reductions in poverty were both statistically significant and robust across alternative specifications.
> Some fear that growth propelled by economic freedom will leave the poor behind. This was not the case during 1980–2005. During this quarter of a century, the developing countries that moved the most toward economic freedom achieved both strong economic growth and substantial reductions in poverty. This indicates that an institutional and policy environment consistent with economic freedom is an important ingredient for progress against poverty.
> We study the relationship between economic freedom and poverty rates in 151 countries over a twenty-year period. Using the World Bank's poverty headcounts of those living on less than $1.90 per day, $3.20 per day, and $5.50 per day, we find evidence that economic freedom, measured by the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, is associated with lower poverty rates. We also test the effect of various components of the Index of Economic Freedom. We find that a government's integrity and a country's trade freedom are associated with lower poverty rates. We check the robustness of our results using alternative freedom indices.
This book has been proven a fraud by historians around the world time and time again, including by many leading historians in the United States. It’s fraudulence, and the support and proliferation of it by US state officials and US academies is sheer embarrassment. The fact that anyone still has the nerve to so much as imply that this is a worthwhile source of information should serve as a stain on the prevailing liberalism of our times.
Are you claiming that the famines in the USSR and the gulags, for example, didn't happen? How about Pol Pot's massacres?
I'm curious as to your explanation for why communist countries built walls to keep people in, and the US builds walls to keep people out? Can you point out famines and gulags in the US?
I toured East Berlin in 1969. I went through the wall. East Berlin looked like a drab prison camp compared to West Berlin. You can believe whatever you like, but I've seen it with my own eyes.
I think the Berliners were a little too eager to tear down that wall, though I totally understand why. Should have left more of it up to inform later revisionists.
They were poor because they spent a large fraction of their GDP on the Wall.
I've heard the claim before that the Wall was built to keep Westerners out. But, as I said, I've visited the Wall in 1969. It was very clearly designed to keep people in, not out. The defenses pointed East. It was a layered defense, with the weakest parts easternmost and the deadliest parts adjacent to the Wall itself. Exactly what would be built to defend from attack from the East. You'll see the same setup in fortifications from castles (layers pointing outwards) to prisons (layers pointing inwards).
For another example, West Berlin helped out people who wanted to invade East Berlin by building platforms so one could look over the Wall (as myself and lots of tourists did). Nobody hopped over, though, to invade the East. But many got shot trying to go the other way, there's a museum there documenting it.
BTW, it was the East that blockaded West Berlin, attempting to starve the city into submission, not the other way around.
The wall was mainly built to prevent brain drain. The richer West was bribing people to move there, after they were raised and trained with the resources of the poorer East. It was a last resort taken out of desperation over the West’s constant economic and covert military attacks and arguably still a mistake. For example, the USSR disagreed with the wall and recommended against building it.
A similar kind of brain drain is happening all over Eastern Europe, to disastrous consequences. Especially with COVID it’s a massive problem that most trained medics have emigrated.
The West didn't need to bribe people, it just had to not take people's rights and things.
> For example, the USSR disagreed with the wall and recommended against building it.
It's a laughable idea that the GDR did decide such things without Moscow. Closing and fortifying the German-German border effectively happened on Stalins orders, the Berlin Wall was built with Moscows permission.
The why do the Soviet archives contain detailed accounts of Stalin himself (and several other leaders) discussing the matter and sending a recommendation against the wall? Why do the same archives tell us about the proposal of a unified neutral Germany after the war?
While not agreeing with them, I was interested in your arguments in the parent comments.
This one is wrong to the point of making you seem delusional.
> The GDR was poor because it was small,
It was about double the size of Switzerland, four times the size of Norway or Denmark, 30 times the size of Luxembourg. Do you see where I am going here?
> didn’t start out with much industry,
Berlin and Prussia have a rich industrial history.
> had a hostile enclave forced on half its capital,
Calling West-Berlin the hostile enclave is insulting to hundreds of people getting shot trying to flee towards it. You should be ashamed for this sentence.
> paid reparations,
... enforced on it by their communist puppet-master.
> competed with the US-funded western part
The effects of the Marshall plan are overestimated. It competed with its dysfunctional system against a functioning one.
> and was under constant attack from it.
I am confused. Are you talking about the care-packages sent to Eastern Germany by western family members?
I understand it is difficult to question much of what one has learned growing up about the past. It took me a lot of talking to older Eastern Europeans and reading history and political theory to begin questioning the default narrative.
The GDR was small and with little industry compared to its Western counterpart, not in absolute terms. When we’re talking about people moving between the two that is what is relevant.
It’s not the people of West Berlin that were hostile, but its state and US occupiers. The insistence of the US on a split Germany with half of the capital as an enclave was the first such hostile action, especially when the USSR was proposing a united neutral Germany. Leaving Nazis in positions of power in the west was the second.
Now you are insulting the people of the former GDR by implying they were puppets of the Soviets. Did you know the USSR were against the wall, but the GDR built it after all? In terms of reparations, it’s normal for an invader to pay reparations to their victim, if nothing else to rebuild. What is unusual is that the rest of Germany didn’t pay reparations to Eastern Europe.
In addition to the Marshal plan (which was significant in West Germany), imperialism continued. As the most obvious example, West German banks continued to export capital at extortionate rates to extract profits from poorer countries.
There were numerous covert attacks against the GDR, what do you think the Stasi were fighting? Western agents were found all over Eastern Europe spreading lies, arming fascists, assassinating people, etc.
I recommend you speak to some people that experienced the GDR. Their opinions are instructive.
Not all of us Eastern Europeans agree on everything. Having talked to hundreds older than myself on the topic however, I found overall they disagreed with you.
Well, of course, there was the ruling class, the party members. They are quite fond of the good old times when they ruled based on connections, politics and favors.
They hate with a passion the current times when people are able do better themselves and achieve their dreams on their own however they wish and wherever they wish, in freedom.
I’ve only talked to a handful of former party members.
What I did find is that those whose families were poor had most praise for socialist and condemnation for the return to poverty after 89. Freedom from poverty, hunger, homelessness, ignorance are important.
Former gentry, small business owners and fascists did hate socialism, indeed. The freedom to exploit others was what they wanted.
Secret police then - I bet they are in no hurry to admit their role in the commie shit show but there sure was an awful lot of them. You couldn't say one joke without an informant reporting it to the powers that be. Every group of friends had at least one and every family too.
And I wouldn't be so sure about the fascists hating socialists - weren't they even allies at some point? They seemed quite chummy to me. And they certainly had the same obsession with killing the ones they perceived as "guilty" for the whatever "societal injustices" their sick minds imagined.
"The poor" seemed quite happy to take off into the exploitative West to make some money after '89 though. ;-)
> The GDR was small and with little industry compared to its Western counterpart, not in absolute terms. When we’re talking about people moving between the two that is what is relevant.
I repeat my point: Switzerland is tiny compared to Germany, yet it is richer. Russia is big compared to Germany, yet it is way poorer. China is enormous compared to Germany, yet it took ages to overtake German productivity and is still somewhat within range.
> The insistence of the US on a split Germany with half of the capital as an enclave was the first such hostile action, especially when the USSR was proposing a united neutral Germany.
Historically just wrong. There were different plans during and after WW2. Britain had the idea to do a North-South division. The UDSSR wanted to split Germany permanently and as small as possible. Read what Stalin said in Teheran in 1943. It was not the US, who proposed to divide Germany.
All of them invaded Germany, but the US did so comitting less war crimes (e.g. against women) themselves than the UDSSR and with less intend to destroy everything or move it to America. That's of course also, because their people were less affected. We all know, who they acted in the Pacific. But it was also, because they had learned from WW1 and tried to bring stability to Europe. The UDSSR brought a totally different kind of "stability".
> In terms of reparations, it’s normal for an invader to pay reparations to their victim, if nothing else to rebuild. What is unusual is that the rest of Germany didn’t pay reparations to Eastern Europe.
If you ignore giving up 25% of its landmass with entire cities like Königsberg/Kaliningrad, which is now impoverished because of the system you are defending, then sure. I also don't know whether Poland and other Eastern European countries would have called the UDSSR a victim, after they had been invaded by them.
> The insistence of the US on a split Germany with half of the capital as an enclave was the first such hostile action, especially when the USSR was proposing a united neutral Germany.
Germans have to be forever thankful for the US keeping tabs on Berlin. It is part of the reason why Germany could reuinte eventually. You probably know about the Berlin Airlift. The UDSSR has proven its open inhumanity not only against enemies but also its own people and people they controlled time and time again.
> There were numerous covert attacks against the GDR, what do you think the Stasi were fighting?
It's own people. The documents are still there, you can look at them. It was a horrendous system. I cannot imagine why you defend it. I can admit that the West is not perfect. We can find ways to improve it, without defending a system that is so clearly worse.
Genocide of Native Americans, man-made famines in India, imperialism and colonialism in general, the >100 coups executed by the US in the 20th century...
Simple question: do you attribute all preventable or violent deaths under capitalism to the ideology of capitalism? If yes you probably have over billions of deaths since the ~1600s.
Simple answer: I would count violent purges and death camps, mass executions, deliberate impositions of famine, deaths due to mass confiscation of property, gulag deaths, etc. Those are active killings of people.
